It took three long weeks, but the four ministers who were appointed to counsel the disgraced former New Life minister report that Haggard is now "completely heterosexual."
How do they know? Did he pass a test? Did they make him look at pictures of a) muscular male prostitutes, and b) fancy ladies -- and then check his arousal rate? Did the Reverend Ted buy a new gun rack for his truck? Has he started watching NASCAR? Is Gayle pregnant again? What gives?
The Reverend Tim Ralph, one of the gang of four, produced the following thoroughly incoherent analysis. "It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing." I construe "things took place" to refer to whatever Ted did with the brawny masseur. I construe Reverend Tim's sentences to mean: "Things took place when they took place. At other times, they didn't take place." Very insightful, very reassuring. But since Reverend Tim and his friends have succeeded so well and so rapidly with Haggard, don't they owe something to all the other struggling-against-their-own-gayness evangelicals (and Roman Catholic priests) out there. Shouldn't they franchise this cure? There's a huge market.
Some questions. A) Do the four ministers truly believe that Haggard is "completely heterosexual?" If they do, their knowledge of human life is shallow beyond belief. If they don't, they're frauds of a high order of fraudulence. B) Do the ministers think that we regular walking-round non-evangelicals swallow their stories? Do they care? C) Do they think that New Life congregants believe them? D) Are New Life congregants completely brainwashed?
A skeptical note. It's reported that the Reverend Ted settled with the New Life Church for a sum of money. By the terms of the agreement, neither he nor the church are allowed to say exactly how much treasure is involved. Moreover, Reverend Ted has agreed to leave Colorado Springs. Cynical old me thinks that it's nothing more than an old-fashioned payoff: you get out of town and never darken our doorstep again, and here's a bunch of cash. Stick around and we can do nothing for you. Dollars to donuts there's a no-litigation-on-either-side agreement as well. It's all so very uplifting, so very spiritual.
February 17. I received this jaundiced e-mail from my friend and correspondent Spike S. "You're entirely too easy on these clowns. Ted's clearly bi-sexual, and he'll always be. But here's the deal they made: the ministers said, we'll declare that you're heterosexual, but only if you get out of Colorado. Their only agenda is to make sure that the mega-million dollar New Life church stays solvent, and they can't manage it if Ted's around. They'll pay for Reverend Ted's master's in psychology -- no doubt from some off-brand bible college -- and he'll take up a new career re-programming and therefore screwing up young gay fundamentalists. And what about the Reverend's drug problem? Wasn't he a member of, what do they call it, the First Methedrine Church, or is he a Crystal Methodist? How long, anyone want to guess, before Ted falls off either or both of these wagons? I'll give him a year and a half, max."
“Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.” H.L. Mencken
Posted by: Otis Jefferson Brown | February 16, 2007 at 06:39 AM